changing the neighborhood

posted Friday, January 20th, 12

The City is looking hard at this neighborhood in their planning process for the next 25 years. At the center of the conversation (and the geographic location) is the I-5 and I-84 interchange that happens at Leftbank’s back door. City planners, area stakeholders, ODOT, PDOT and citizen activists have worked over the last year and a half to narrow the redesign options from infinite down to about three. The process has brought problems and potential solutions into sharp focus in order to make recommendations to the City this summer. Many proposed changes have fantastic potential in terms of safety and urban planning. But, one of the options still in the running affects Leftbank in a way that deeply concerns me. It calls for rerouting N Vancouver so it no longer runs behind Leftbank, but instead runs diagonally replacing what is now Flint St. north of Broadway, then onto what is now Wheeler St., directly outside Leftbank’s front door. It’s hard to represent the plan with just words in a single paragraph, so I encourage everyone invested in the neighborhood to attend the N/NE Quadrant Project Open House: